Every Fall, the kids' school starts off their long trail of fundraisers with my favorite, the Literary Festival! Something about the beginning of those crisp cool days that makes you think BOOKS! This Festival lasts from Thursday-Sunday and is all about gaining books for the classrooms and library.

Friday is always Dress like your favorite literary character day. Ethylwolfe had a hard time deciding who to dress like, he loooves captain underpants (hahaha) but his teacher said no underwear sightings please. So he was stumped. Until he thought about willy wonka. I've read this to the kids and his teacher just read it to them last quarter. They spent a lot of time comparing the book with the movie renditions. So when he thought of Willy Wonka he was determined to get his costume right. He made a list of his description...purple tail coat, black top hat, black goatee, grey gloves, green glass pants, black walking stick...

The only differences were the bow tie and the shoes.... His practicality won out on the shoes as he said this morning, "I like to run at recess, I have to wear my sneakers." And the bow tie we added because there was no description of that so we did what we wanted there.

When he decided on Willy, he was a little hesitant about the jacket. Where could we buy it? He didn't think I could do it. Hmph! Iiii can't do that?! Ha! What kind of hinderance is it that I've only just learned how to use a sewing machine, can hardly use a pattern, and oh wait, they don't have a pattern for the real willy costume. Well what are those little obsticles when you really want to do something, and no pressure, if it slightly looks like the real deal, when your 8 year old wont really care (hopefully) So after a lot of thinking and the deadline sneaking upon me I got to work last week on it.

I eyeballed what I thought it should look like as I cut away on the fabric. In hindsight I should have drawn it out first...or traced a pattern and added to it, or measured...but naaah, who needs that?!?! In 2 days and roughly 3 hours, I was able to whip up this bad boy. He was quite pleased and so was I that it was even remotely even haha.

His black cane was a last minute throw together this morning, thanks bad memory! I took a wooden dowel and wrapped black electrical tape around it. I had planned to spray paint it but kept forgetting to buy the paint...His hat hubby and I made a few months ago for a back in time costume for hubby, he went as the monopoly guy :)We had the grey gloves (but he forgot to wear them) and the bow tie is papa's...I tied it myself...obvious I know! haha need to work on that :)And the goatee I drew on (as we ran out the door almost late for school!) in eyeliner. Almost used a sharpie, but oh yeah, we have service in the morning, that would not be fun if it doesn't wash off in time! :)

Fancy Nancy was easy enough, just grab the girliest pieces of clothing you can find and throw them together. I made her a cat suit the other month and she wanted to wear that, but it screams "homemade" and I couldn't think of a cat that is hot pink with black polka-dots, so we ditched that idea for Fancy Nancy. I did want to give her big crazy fancy nancy hair though. So I twisted it up the night before and took it out this morning. And sprayed it like crazy with super hold hair spray...that hair is a mess! She loved it! :-)

So here they are, off to school looking quite awesome. I shudder to think what they'll look like when they get home and their costumes are falling apart ;-)

So I pat myself on the shoulder for this one. Job well done'ish for me! And I did it all while Emy was screaming at me, every stitch of that jacket...